Posts Tagged «actuator»

A sponge absorbing water from the air does not at first appear to be a promising powerplant for a microactuator, let alone one that could rival the speed and power of our own muscle. A research group at MIT has recently built a polymer actuator that runs off of water vapor alone, yet has the performance of actuators that are powered by more energetic sources like heat or light.

Nanotechnology has promised us a fantastic world where miniature factories would build devices atom by atom. A recent report describes a new kind of microactuator made from vanadium oxide. This material has some pretty incredible properties, and it might be able to fill in some of the gaps left by other microactuator technologies that come up short.

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